BASKETBALL: Germantown Academy rides late surge to victory over Mercersburg

WHITEMARSH — With Germantown Academy’s hard fought win Friday night over Haverford to clinch the Inter-Academic title and the resultant dousing of Coach Jim Fenerty, the Patriots can just kick up their feet and rest up for the playoffs, right?

Wrong. In a Sunday matinee serving as senior night for the 2013 graduates, GA battled to a win over the long-distance visiting Mercersburg Blue Storm in a grueling matchup where trips to the free throw line were neither free, nor a form of charity, but made the ultimate difference.

“For us, winning the Inter-AC is the ultimate goal, everything else is icing on the cake for us,” said GA coach, Jim Fenerty. “Today was a day where we wanted to celebrate.”

Mercersburg came to spoil the party, however. In the blink of an eye the score was 13-3 in the first quarter.

In the second, GA’s trap worked the ball out of the hands of Mercersburg’s Dre Wills’, who had 17 points in the game. On the resultant turnovers they were able to put the fast break in full gear and get to the free throw line, stepping to the strip six times in the quarter and making ten of twelve.

At half, GA trailed 30-34. “We shared the ball, and that gets everyone going,” said senior Greg Dotson, who had 17 points. “When we start to run, it helps us get our offense going.”

“We can’t drop our heads or drop our shoulders and show that kind of body language,” said Earl Edwards, who recently returned after missing much of the season due to fracturing his metacarpals in his shooting hand. “We just got to pick each other up, tell them ‘next shot’s going in.’”

In the third quarter, a succession of playmaking brought GA back into the game. Senior guard James Drury made his first three of the game, tenacious point guard Nick Lindner — who had zero shots from the field, but shot eight of twelve from the free throw line — made two, a block at one end following a dunk at the other by Julian Moore led to two more by Greg Dotson, and gave GA their first lead of the game at 43-42.

In the fourth, GA outscored Mercersburg 18-7 and sealed the win with a post-game pizza party. GA went 30-40 from the free throw line.

“Teamwork won this game,” Dotson said. “We had a tough win against Haverford on Friday, and we just carried that into this game; it was a big part of our victory.”

GA looks to continue their success this week with hopes of achieving the extremely rare, and much sought-after opportunity to finish the season undefeated in the Inter-Ac with victories over Chestnut Hill and Episcopal.

“We’re all athletes, we’re all competitors,” Edwards said. “At the end of the day we got to set our differences aside to achieve the ultimate goal, and that’s to win.”